Logs:Presenting
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 11 April, 2013 |
| Who: Anvori, Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Normally, when this sort of present is given (Leova) and received (Anvori), everyone's happier. |
| Where: Anvori's Quarters, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 26, Month 6, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: summer |
| Mentions: D'nis/Mentions, Jesia/Mentions, Nob/Mentions, Taikrin/Mentions, Tili/Mentions, Veylin/Mentions, Via/Mentions, W'chek/Mentions |
  |
| By the time Anvori gets back from the Snowasis, Leova's hunkered down by his fireplace, messing with a large picnic basket she's set far too close to the flames. It's summer outside, but deep within the caverns, it's a near-constant coolness that isn't cold but isn't really warm either. And the fire may take the chill off, but there's still a pinched quality to the greenrider's cheeks. It's rare for Anvori to come home with alcohol on his breath. But there he is, walking in, shutting the door, locking it behind him, and then dropping to his knees by that lit fire to brush his lips against Leova's cheeks before he's moving again. There it is, the distinctive spice of a very old brandy wafting away with his movements, as he strips off his shirt on the way to the bedroom, throwing it onto the bed there and apparently shedding his pants as well, for when he pads back out, he's shirtless and in boxer shorts. "I don't know if I ever thought a day would come when I'd complain there were too many people drinking." "Was D'nis there?" Leova waits to ask until Anvori's returning, looking him over before stretching, just enough to sit back on her bottom with her legs pulled up at the knee. They're still leather-clad. She's still flight-clad, though her jacket and its whiff of firestone from earlier days is hanging up. "I hope they didn't bother Tili too much. I hope she didn't drop anything again." After a moment, her voice altered slightly, "You smell good." "Long day," is the immediate apology, as if somehow 'you smell good' actually means 'why did you drink'. Anvori manages a small smile for Leova and drops by her and that unseen picnic basket. "No, no D'nis. But there were others from Boreal and Iceberg. I had Nob, what an unfortunate name, keep an eye on them all night. And no, Tili didn't drop anything today. But," that small smile deepens and his voice thickens with wryness, "I did send her home shortly after they arrived with their marks and their cards. Jesia does better with that set. You?" His hand stretches out to run an absently possessive stroke against her leg. "You still smell good," Leova murmurs, insisting on her original meaning without wholly demanding. Her amber eyes rest on him, for that day and for that apology. She can manage a small answering smile, too. "If they tipped as well as they should have, Jesla probably went home a happy woman. Do you think Nob has a brother named Hook, or worse? As for my day... well, what are we going to do, you know? But I did finally get the message that this was ready." She sits up a little more, her knee leaning into his hand even as she nods with her chin towards the basket. If he tries to move it, well. It's heavy. "I imagine worse. His mother-," well, Anvori doesn't continue other than to shake his head. Judgment, however, shines a little too much in his hazel eyes: not the brightest glow in the batch. But the subject of Jesia? That one he can comment on further, "Happy woman, happy men." The plural comes with a head shake and another of those small, long-day-worn smiles. His palm lies flat against her knee, and then slides, threatening to climb higher along her thigh. He's just about to scoot closer, his face moving into the nuzzling position when there's distraction and he follows that jerk of her chin to the basket. A lazy leg stretches forth, toes reaching to tap at it. "Did they let you in the kitchens again?" She's laughing, low. "I can imagine." Her hand then moves to steal his, and Leova promises, "After." If they're still in the mood. In the meantime, maybe he'll have to open the basket with his toes, or with his nose. "I do know how you like baked goods," although perhaps not Leova's, the greenrider more talented in assembling than actually cooking. There's a very audible sound of protest when she stops his hand from venturing further, even if he's already stopped it to stare at that basket. A hand presses into his bare chest and rubs, ending up patting the little pooch of age (and alcohol) that's growing. "After. Dragonrider, you're killing me!" Heaving a sigh, a very audible, very put upon sigh, Anvori takes back his hand from hers, and also away from her knees and body in general, and sits up a little straighter so that he can reach for the heavy basket and drag it closer. "If this is a baked good, I might not eat it," he warns. "I like my teeth a lot and I don't think S'roven's look would be a good fit for me." That laughter drops further into chuckles, and that dragonrider leans to kiss the bartender's shoulder, her fingers tickling down his side. "You know the Hold owes us well-made men in tithe." At least she tries not to distract him too much, likely made easier by her snort. "I don't know. You could always get fake ones made like W'chek's, take them in and out to scare Via with, different colors for different occasions..." It is heavy. The wicker creaks. And it's months after his Turnday, even, not that he hadn't had his own treat then. "Just don't shake it around, hm?" All Anvori does, or has to do, is give Leova a look. The look. And not the good kind of look that leads to the spoiling of his quarters. Some day, maybe quite soon, she'll come home with him having blackened his front teeth to surprise her with. Some day, but not today. "Don't think I could shake it around even if I wanted to. I don't have the brute strength that D'nis is probably capable of. Ok, let's see." The laziness is quickly shed, the promise of after having sunk in quite well, and after can only come if he hurries along the now. He works the latch of the picnic basket and swings the top up to peer in. Leova tries to quail, lest the efforts that went into that look have gone in vain, but really, it's not so very convincing. He looks at the basket, she looks at him. It's filled by a large lidded jar, a small keg of sorts, ceramic except for the leather carry-strap. In the basket there is a jar, and in the jar there is some sand, and in the sand there is... She doesn't speak, only waits for him to discover it. And for what's in the jar, Anvori's lips twitch. His brows twitch. His brow furrows. And then, he looks up at Leova and then back down into the basket with the jar and sand. There's a very unsuccessful attempt at trying not to sound amused as he inquires: "Has anyone ever tried to eat one of these before?" "I'm sure they have, but if you waste that one, there will be no after." Leova is very, very stern. Anvori makes a face of contrition. But faking an apology for a joke made doesn't quite change the uncertainty with which he studies the jar. "It's really generous, given these things seem more rare than Sleet paying off their tab. But-." There's always a but. "But, what should I do with it?" There's honest bafflement on his face. A one-cornered smile briefly cracks what had been sternness, what's now not-so-simply seriousness. "I want you to Impress it," the greenrider says to her weyrmate, "and I want you to train it, Anvori. Train it well. I want us to be able to rely on its taking messages where you want it to, for if I.. for if I'm not right with you, and anything happens." Some other time, Anvori might have brushed this conversation off with the thought of after looming. But after seems to take a backseat as he leans backwards and studies Leova. "And-," the voice, so even-handed at drawing life stories out of people at the Snowasis, turns a little flat, "What kind of situation might cause that?" He pretends to joke, but it's really no joke at all: "Are you thinking of sending me away?" "No!" Leova's staring at him, but then flicks a glance at the jar in its basket and modulates her voice. "It really shouldn't stay in the basket, that's just for effect," she says, oddly calm for at least that sentence, as though it were somehow relevant. It doesn't last. "Anvori. I just thought. If you didn't want to stay. Or if... or if something happened in the caverns while we were out on sweeps, or more of these expanded drills. If you needed us, and we didn't know." A flicker of something pained flashes in his expression when she mentions him not wanting to stay more than the rest. The rest of the 'what ifs', perhaps not seeming as real as that one likelihood. "Leova," the name's said quietly, his hand reaching out to touch her somewhere, anywhere, ultimately deciding to press the back of his knuckles against her cheek, reaching it up to curl her hair over her ear. "I won't leave. Even if I want to. I won't leave you." There's a swallow as he looks back down at the basket with the jar with the egg on the sands inside. "We can train it-, him? her?" the question of firelizard sex momentary distracts him to look quizzically to the greenrider, as if she might, in all her dragonriderliness, know. She's watching him with those dilated amber eyes, and when he touches her, slides close to nestle against him and then hug him one-armed. She leans to kiss him, too, not just his cheek. "But if you were checking on Via with your mother," Leova begins. "Or if you were off... testing the suppliers' latest vintage, or anything, really." She sighs, resting her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what it is, what color it is or anything. All I know is that she, the one with the clutch, was laughing about how she had to trick her gold into letting her steal..." Times like these, even another Weyr doesn't seem so very far away. "To take the egg for you." Ahhhh, is the enlightenment on Anvori's face that doesn't quite expel in a vocalized pronouncement. "I was going to say," and as she mentions Via, the light lingers in his eyes, "We could train it to go to Via. I miss her." The second statement comes quickly after the first, the words practically tumbling over each other. "She's growing up away from us and that doesn't feel right either and yet-, I mean..." he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, though his arm falls over his weyrmate's shoulders to squeeze her in tight into that one-armed hug. "Should we bring her back?" Since we're not leaving together. But that's not spoken this time, if it ever was before. Leova's, "Miss her too," is a mother's agreement, and it's also a tired admission. At least, "We could train it to visit. Vrianth would help, it makes it so much clearer. If it's a big enough firelizard, and it's a big egg but maybe the shell's thick, it could carry things when it's older... firelizards grow up so much faster than girls do," even when it doesn't seem like it sometimes. She exhales, quietly. She leans into him more, that much more quietly. "I don't think we should bring her into this. Now." And also, "Vrianth thinks, Vrianth feels all the way through me, that this is amazing... I can't take her away, Anvori. I hope that things will get better. That it's fallout from change. But I'm also not so sure I'm the best judge." "This is amazing?" There's again that sense of befuddlement and uncertainty, two emotions not generally in Anvori's emotional lexicon. "How so? I work in the bar and I hear so much, see so much, and wonder how much more unrest can happen before it all spontaneously combusts. These games- the mock Threadfall Taikrin's announced... nothing good will come of it." And there's Leova, in Glacier. Thick in the middle. Does that arm tighten about Leova? Is his breath suddenly warm in her hair, the point of his nose blunt against her head? If it does, if they do, it's something that his weyrmate more than welcomes. She turns her head, rubbing his nose with hers in that familiar way before settling for pressing her cheek against his rougher one instead. "You pick up so much. I wonder that, too... it's just, the thing is, Vrianth doesn't see that. What she feels is this team of hers, this team that's banded together for Turns now even when new dragons show up and others leave, they're doing something. Flying. 'Fighting.' Learning. It's tricky work and she's good at it. She's exhilarated. And... while we're up in the air, so am I." Anvori's reflective, "Beast," is more complimentary of Vrianth than an insult. It speaks of her power, her prowess, and is marked with just a healthy splash of respect and fear. Somehow, in that one word, particularly with how it's said with the touch of wonderment, it might recognize how much of his weyrmate is tied to this beast. "It's what she was built for," except that she could easily be you. "I don't blame her." You. "But," he drops concerned eyes to the top of her head, eyes she can't really see from this angle, but perhaps 'felt' in the way longterm companions of their sort might sense. "Be careful up there. Be careful of-," he chews his lip and curls Leova even tighter, if that's even possible, "Just be careful. You have to teach me to train this firelizard thing after all." "She is," and there's complexity in that ever-smoky voice of Leova's, wholly smitten after nigh on seventeen Turns. She'll always have been with Vrianth longer than him. But she promises to Anvori, not her dragon, "I'll be careful." It has to be in the singular this time. For a while the greenrider's quiet in his arms. Then, mutedly, "I was so frightened when she..." She wraps his fingers around hers, her scarred fingers. "The exiles still fly," could be a pensive reminder. Or it could be a warning of those things Anvori hears: it's not just Vijays and criminals that take to the skies. A long beat passes after his terse statement, as those scars bid him to stroke and play about their non-tender bumps and curves. Then, a gently leading, "Frightened?" Vijays, criminals. Exiles. Convicts. Leova's breath hitches, and he may well know by now but she translates part of it into words anyway. "Didn't think of that. Wouldn't have thought they would go after me." Would they? She leans back just enough and just long enough to look at him. Then, lower, "When she rose that time and the glass. You know." The glass. The blood. "If I could have gotten a message to you..." it might not have been coherent. Might have been more frightening than otherwise, even had Vrianth complied. His hand tenses. In fact, his whole body does. He remembers. It's a flight, how could he not remember? But Anvori doesn't speak of it, preferring to glide past it with an affectionate squeeze once he reanimates himself. "Thank you," he finally says, reaching with his free arm to try and drag that heavy basket even closer. "For this. It's an incredible gift. Rare and I really appreciate what it means for us. Hey." A beat of silence. He waits for her to acknowledge that sudden shift in emotion from gratitude to... something more cheered. Leova reads her weyrmate, waits him out, keeps holding him for his shirtless self. And if sometimes she might rather he speak... this time, this time it might be just as well, and maybe the other times too. He speaks of this other thing, after all. This thing that she's trying to give him. "Let me guess," she says, eyeing him. She's gotten to smiling, finally. "You're thinking that 'after' is 'now'?" For once, Anvori looks startled, then laughs a low, rumbling sort of laughter. "Now that you mention it..." How his hand finds itself under the waistband of her riding pants so easily only speaks of the turns of practice between them. "No, but tomorrow, if you're not drilling- maybe we can go see her. I- a daughter needs her daddy to throw her up in the air every once in a while I think." And it's also a testament to his general maleness that he can speak of his daughter with such affection while trying to get the daughter's mother out of her clothing. "Then that's what we'll do," his daughter's mother replies, her smile deepening. "And then stay home until it hatches. Know that's a great sacrifice." That last is mostly tongue in cheek: Anvori, volunteering to fly? But that smile also suggests that maybe that daddy needs his daughter, too. Surely, surely Glacier won't get in the way. |
Comments
K'del (K'del (talk)) left a comment on Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:28:08 GMT.
< Anvori/Leova scenes always make me happy. I love... they have such a realistic relationship, especially one of this length. They know each other, and of course Anvori is worried, and Leova is happy because Vrianth is, even knowing that things are messy otherwise, and... Nothing is clear cut, black and white.
It's just lovely, basically.
Aishani (Brieli (talk)) left a comment on Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:34:26 GMT.
<
As above.
Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:54:36 GMT.
<
Agreed! It's so... real, and comfortable, but still uncomfortable in places that they've grown to accept rather than pick over in the attempts to make everything perfect. And I think the gift is an amazing one. Like K'del said- so much delicious gray area. <3 But you can still feel the love and it's wonderful.
Leave A Comment